I would love a toggle to have the Save on Exit - save the file twice - so that the BAK and the AEC files would be the most recent version of the file. I do this manually, but if it was automatic, that would be good.

Neil wrote: ... save the file twice - so that the BAK and the AEC files would be the most recent version of the file

Hi Neil,

Could you just amend the Alt/Q shortcut to accomplish this ?

... Or you could include my dhSave macro (https://www.dhsoftware.com.au/dhsave.htm) into the shortcut to save a timestamped copy as well (the macro actually saves the file and then copies it to a name that includes a timestamp, so if you called the macro you could say No to the Confirm Save prompt and you would still have a saved copy and a timestamped copy of the file, as well as a BAK of the previous version) ...

Code: Select allQ^:^;^s9^dhSave$^É^:^S9// save a timestamped copy of the file and quit

Neil Blanchard wrote:I would love a toggle to have the Save on Exit - save the file twice - so that the BAK and the AEC files would be the most recent version of the file. I do this manually, but if it was automatic, that would be good.

Save, and then Save and close; all in one step.

Curious, is the reason for this because you afraid of loosing your main file before your backups run or something? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the DBK file?

Neil wrote: I am thinking that having two files that are saving the latest work - is better than one.

I must admit that like Josh I am a bit curious about this. Two files are only better than one if one of them is corrupted. If the corruption is a problem with your HD storage then there is an obvious advantage in having 2 files (so long as they don't both have data in the same bad sector etc.), but if it is the result of a problem in DataCAD then it is likely to be replicated in 2 saves done immediately after each other, so you will just end up with 2 corrupted files (in which case it would be more advantageous to have a copy of your previous save which may not have the corruption).Both scenarios are pretty unlikley, but I think I would choose to have a copy of the previous save (quite apart from software bugs, what happens if you have accidentally deleted some information etc and you only realise it as you save/quit).

Someone recently posted a question about recovering a drawing after mistakenly deleting the AEC. And sometimes we start editing a file, and forget to do a Save As; so we could open the BAK and recover the latest version of the file.

Someone recently posted a question about recovering a drawing after mistakenly deleting the AEC. And sometimes we start editing a file, and forget to do a Save As; so we could open the BAK and recover the latest version of the file.

That makes perfect sense Neil, and I now understand where you are coming from. ... On thinking about it, I am pretty sure that I normally save (manually) immediately before closing DataCAD, so I wouldn't have a BAK of the previous version as I most likely also select to save when prompted. This is not because I think about it, but rather habit from using other applications (e.g. Word) which do not prompt you to save on exit if you have not made any changes since the last save (and that would be my suggestion for DataCAD, but it is pretty much the opposite of what you suggested! )

I expect that you have at least a nightly automated backup, so you could always get the current version from there if the mistake was made the following day, but I understand that it is probably easier just to go to the BAK file (or the mistake may be made before it was backed up). Actually this is precisely the sort of reason why I wrote dhSave, but I'm not aware if anybody is actually using it.

Mark Bell wrote:There's times when a mirror line is needed between two points on a drawing. Bisect isn't always able to work due to the types of entities selected. Being able to pick Mirror/F3 Midpoint would allow a user to snap to any two points then DataCAD can set the crosshair at 90' to the alignment.

Hi Mark,

Could you accomplish this by object-snapping to the two points in the drawing to define the Mirror line, and then select Add 90 Ctr to rotate the Mirror line about its midpoint by 90 degrees?